


Macramé

by RuleBritannia



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Arthur understands people, Auras, Family, Gen, Thread of fate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-13
Updated: 2012-05-13
Packaged: 2017-11-05 06:44:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/403527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RuleBritannia/pseuds/RuleBritannia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur can see things others don’t. </p><p>For this prompt: http://cabinpres-fic.dreamwidth.org/4207.html?thread=6236271#cmt6236271</p>
            </blockquote>





	Macramé

It was clear to anyone who’d spent five minutes with him, that Arthur did not see the world like everyone else. What they didn’t know- and the one secret he’d been actually able to keep from everyone- was that he could see things no one else could. Like a faint glimmer of color around people, always unique and almost always brilliant. Or the red little strings tying people together, some at the ankle, some at their pinky. Some times permanently, and sometimes just little nooses that came undone at the barest tug. At times brushing each other as they passed, at times tangling in a mess and pulling painfully.

 

He spent hours observing those connections, and noticing the colors of the people attached to them. He didn’t understand many things, but he really only wanted to understand people. Like his father and his mum. They’d had one of those painful tangled messes, though it only looked painful on his mum’s side. So Arthur, not liking it one bit, would try his best to untangle them whenever they weren’t looking. Not to untie them, that wouldn’t be nice, but maybe just make the connection smoother. He never quite managed it.

 

 

When the thread finally broke from the tension, Arthur couldn’t say he was sad. (Well, he hardly ever could say that, anyway.) Besides, his mum’s colors -a bright lemon-yellow with hints of deep red- seemed to brighten a lot once the strain was lost, and he could finally see his own thread, strong but smooth, tied to his mum’s ankle. There was no thread from his dad, unless he was really, really close, and it was never smooth.

 

As he grew older, he started noticing that lots of people were unattached, and they always looked a bit sad, their colors maybe a bit dull, even though they were still brilliant. Some people’s threads were so thin they were almost invisible. Those people’s colors were not… as brilliant. But sometimes, just walking down the street with his mum, or coming out of the school after classes, he would see a family, and it was like a web of red string surrounding them, but not in an oppressive way; like a net, folding them in their own little world, protecting them. It wasn’t like that with all of the families he saw, but when he did see it, it made him smile, thinking he could maybe one day knit one of those nets for his mum and himself, like macramé.

 

When he first saw Douglas, walking around the airfield looking for an old friend, he noticed he was a variation of murky colors, but under that murk, he was actually really brilliant, more brilliant than most people. He also seemed to drag a few red strings that seemed to have snapped from the other end, but that he refused to let go of. So Arthur did the only sensible thing, and picked one up. He wasn’t very good at knitting, but soon Douglas was working for his mum, and their threads, as well as his own, found their way in spite of his clumsy knot.

 

Not many pilots applied to the position of the captain, and Arthur liked all of them, he did; but when Martin walked in, colors all dim and faded and so, so thin, with no strings at all, Arthur picked one of his own and did his best to at least secure him. It resulted in Martin tripping, hitting the floor face first. After a mumbled apology and a ridiculous excuse from Arthur, Martin went in to his interview, with one foot haphazardly tied to his and his mum’s string.  

 

It wasn’t really a neat net. It looked like one of those webs from spiders on marihuana that he’d seen online once. And it was a bit of a mess, tugging a bit in places. But it surrounded them all, and protected them, without leaving anyone out that wanted in.

 

And it was brilliant.


End file.
